Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Some observations about the Traveler IQ Challenge, which may or may not have real-world implications:

Non-Egypt Africa did not show up until at least Level 6 (medium-difficult).

The islands are so tiny you can't even see them. Hawaii was miniscule; Tuvalu had no chance!

The following countries are much huger than we're led to believe: Turkey, Kazakhstan, and New Zealand.

From my limited data points, it's clear that the Germans prevailed (I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, but did anyone notice how many locations in Germany there were?). Or perhaps eine gute Karte ist halt ein guter freund.

The midwestern United States appears to be a barren wasteland no one needs to know (or they saved it for Level 12).

Croatia never showed up either.

Make of these observations what you may.

If you took the quiz under duress of guilt at work, I suggest retrying at home for better results. Likewise, if you feel moderate to considerable shame about your score, you should really take it again. Unlike real IQ tests (I presume), you can easily raise both your score and your self-esteem (not to mention your map savvy).

This quiz clearly reveals that you can think you know where something is without having any idea of its scale or relation to the rest of the world. Maybe this is the real reason 1/5 of US Americans are unable to find America on a map.